Expressed emotion and prediction of relapse in adolescents with psychotic disorders

Expressed emotion (EE) is associated with relapse in adults with psychotic disorders. EE was assessed both at admission and after discharge with the Five Minutes Speech Sample (FMSS) in adolescent in-patients with psychotic disorders (n=15). The results showed that while neither admission nor post-discharge high-EE predicted relapse, the aggregated EE from admission or after discharge significantly predicted both 1- and 2-year relapse rate when borderline ratings were included in the high-EE group. While predictive power and the sensitivity of admission high-EE and relapse was moderate, the specificity of this association was very high (0.9 or more). The aggregated EE measure yielded high sensitivity and high specificity to predict relapse. Despite the low statistical power of the study, the results indicate that FMSS may be a useful tool in determining the risk of relapse in adolescent psychosis.